


The Presentiment of Grief

by fowo



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 08:48:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4912978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fowo/pseuds/fowo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was a God by birthright, but he fell. He climbed back to his feet and became a Demon instead by his own doing, and he fell again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Presentiment of Grief

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by and dedicated to VenereVeritas.

He slipped in and out of consciousness for days. He had no recollection of how he ended up in his cell, although he certainly could guess. He vaguely remembered people, doctors most likely, bent over him. He couldn't see them, they were just voices. Without the glasses, he refused to open his eyes. He accepted the bandage around his head somewhat gladly. "This is impossible," he heard someone say. "The strings are holding him together. He should be dead!"

But he wasn't. He lived, again, although he shouldn't, again.

He thought he laughed. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he did nothing.

They weren't stingy with the Seastone chains they tied him with. He felt heavy and weak whenever he came to. For the first few days, he was gagged, too. Were they this afraid of him? They better be, he thought bitterly. But for now, there was nothing he could do. Whenever he woke, he stared up at the ceiling, and could barely move a muscle. He needed a while to repair himself. He had ample time to think.

It must have been after about a week, although it felt like an eternity to him. He heard footsteps, and he could tell this wasn't just anyone who came to check up on him. Most marines were cautious when they came to his cell, curious to peek at him but also afraid of what was waiting for them. They expected that the world hadn't seen the best of him yet. Oh, were they ever right.

This time, he could tell it was Tsuru from the way she walked alone, from the sound of her heels. Her stride was confident as ever. She walked like she meant business. There was no bullshitting the Great Tactician, not twenty years ago, and not today. He could tell her apart from thousand others in a crowded room just by the way she moved, how she would cross her arms above her chest, how she carried her head on her thin neck.

He heard a chair being pulled over the floor. She sat herself down, but she didn't say anything. Nevertheless, he could tell she was watching him. He chuckled. "Come to babysit, Miss Tsuru?" he said. His voice cracked a little; he hadn't used it in days.

"You're a little too old to be babysat, don't you think?" she replied indifferently. He laughed softly, and craned his neck to get a look at her. She kept her distance to his cell, and it took effort to move. But he hadn't seen her face for a while, and he was curious. It didn't come as a surprise that Tsuru was getting old. Many years ago he had already thought that she was an old woman, with the twenty, thirty years that she had on him. But even then there had been a juvenile idea that he wanted to conquer her like spoils, with her wrinkles, and her once shining royal blue hair that had started to fade to a light baby blue. By now it was a perfect bright white.

It thrilled him that she had come to escort him. If there was anything positive about this mess of a situation, it was this. Vice Admiral Tsuru had put everything she had been doing on hold, to sail to Dressrosa to be there personally.

She sat in silence, her arms crossed over her chest. Her tie was grey with a small, crimson pattern today. Her earrings were jade. He took his time taking her in. Her scowl delighted him greatly. But his entire body hurt from the effort of looking at her, and he settled back to the floor, staring at the ceiling instead. They ignored each other for a while. Eventually, she sighed. He laughed at her, because he had won. She paid him no mind, as if she was talking to an empty cell and not him. "I'm sorry for what they did to you," she said, and he laughed some more. It made his chains rattle.

"But of course you are," he taunted. "Are you disappointed that it wasn't you?"

"And I'm sorry for the violence that came with it," she added without minding his accusation. "Rebuilding Dressrosa will cost a lot of time and money and energy, and so many lives were lost. If you gained anything at all from this, it's that the world will mutter your name in horror for generations to come."

"Fufufu, it's not exactly the title of the Pirate King, but at least it's something!" He shifted. The numbness of the Seastone chains made it hard to be cocky, but he was not going to let her notice.

She probably knew, anyway.

"You've always been so desperate to leave a trace," she said. She sounded like she pitied him, and he stopped smiling. "Your past is nonpar in all of our history, and yet you long for something greater."

"Well," he said, shifting again, suddenly uncomfortable in his position. "It's in the human nature, isn't it? Striving for more, going big."

"While I suppose that this is true enough... Have you ever even considered yourself human?" she asked softly. Doflamingo bit the inside of his lips and wondered if it was an accusation. "I have," she added. "No matter what you did, how cruel you were, how cunning and how dangerous, I have never seen you as anything but a man."

"Thanks," he spat, offended and angered by her words. "But I have my epithet for a reason."

"'Heaveny Demon'?" She smiled as she got up to her feet, folding the feeble chair she had been sitting on to lean it against the wall again. "Yes... I know. And it's most fitting, isn't it? Everyone treated you like a demon, and maybe that was the mistake. Maybe without the dehumanization, we would have caught you sooner, and without the help of that kid... Straw hat." He heard her step closer, and looked at her again just to see her standing by the bars of his cell. She didn't touch them. He hated her distance and coolness. He wanted to rip that pitying look right off her face, but he couldn't even move his fingers, let alone use his powers.

"Lots of maybes," Doflamingo spat out defensively. "What difference does it make? I've always been more than anyone else. I'm greater than all of you."

"I don't envy you. To be a God must be a burden." Tsuru stood where she was still, lingering. He wondered why she was still there. She had clearly gotten up to leave, but didn't. She looked at Doflamingo in front of her. "You were a God by birthright, but you fell. You climbed back to your feet and became a Demon instead by your own doing, and you fell again. Is this being greater, then?" she asked. Her voice carried something he didn't understand, or chose not to. "Is being better than anyone really worth all the pain?" 

Doflamingo laughed at her, because it was all he could think of doing. "You talk like you know about pain. Can you even imagine what people would do to a fallen Celestial Dragon? Because I doubt it!" He thought Tsuru's gaze lingered on his abdomen, where under the thin prison clothes, soft scar tissue was all that remained of arrow wounds. There was no way she could know.

"You're right, I can't," she admitted. "And I never will. I was never a god and I don't strive to be." He went through the effort of lifting his head so he could stare at her. She didn't wear gloves today, but nevertheless she unweaved her arms from her chest and carefully placed her hand on the bars. He flinched, as if she had invaded his personal space. "And there is no need for demons, either, Doflamingo," she said. "Humans are cruel enough."

He said nothing. He just grinned, his stomach a burning knot. He stared at the ceiling. Her voice reached him through his anger. "For almost twenty years I've told myself that the day I would escort you to Impel Down would be the happiest of my life," she said softly. "It isn't."

He heard her retreat. "I'm going to leave," he heard her say.

"Come back tomorrow," he answered. "Maybe it'll be a happier day."


End file.
